


symptoms of depression

by MousyNona



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Depression, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-16 17:56:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5835316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MousyNona/pseuds/MousyNona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven signs of depression, and how Sans exhibits every one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. loss of interest or pleasure in your activities

**Author's Note:**

> this is a finished series, will update every day (or couple of days).  
> //  
> also, this chapter is set before sans wears slippers, i.e. when he could actually get out of bed in the morning.

 Sans sat next to the heaping hunk of metal, twirling a wrench in the air with the power of his soul. It arched blue sparks as it spun suspended, whirling around faster and faster until it was a solid teal disk and sweat was starting to bead on his skull from the exertion it required to keep it in place.

Something snapped and his soul, no longer able to keep the pace, simply _let go_ . The wrench flew with vengeance, embedding itself (rather spitefully, he thought) into his masterpiece, his _coup d’oeil_. Or what could have been, if he hadn’t been playing around with his toys.

He made a mental note to apologize to Gaster, then scribbled it out just as fast before the memories could grab hold.

 _The bleached white of Gaster’s skull dropping into the abyss -- Sans flailing as he gripped onto the sides of the Core -- blue light flickering in the air helplessly as it tried to_ hold _, to_ sustain _…_

 It took a herculean effort to regain control, but eventually Sans found himself standing over the weakly blinking machine. It gave one last sad _beep_ before going dark. Mustering up his rapidly disappearing motivation, Sans sent out a small blue flicker to gingerly extract the erring wrench. Drifting over from the wreckage, the wrench floated wimpily over to his hand.

 

*sans examines the wrench.

*The wrench is unrepentant.

 

With a _push_ of his soul, Sans obliterated the wrench into dust and let its remains flow onto his blueprints.

The dust trickled down the dog-eared paper and he followed with one phalange, sliding from one note (large, messy, scribbled: _tk/s * 3_ ) to the next (microscopic, machine-neat, technical shorthand: _doesn’t account for negative timelines. Delete)_. The play of formulas alternated between two voices, one playfully suggestive, the other sharply corrective, until it all ended abruptly halfway through a discussion on the paradox of irreversibility.

They’d been working on time containment procedures. They’d been _so close._

With a sigh, Sans turned back to the machine, feeling out the edges of the jagged hole and the broken wires that the wrench had cut. A picture of the damage flickered in his mind: if he just reconnected the red wire to the yellow, the battery might actually work at approximately 113% efficiency...as for the hole, he’d be able to solder some nice titanium plating with his soul to cover the damage. He could buy it off some Temmies, help pay for their endless quest for colleg…

He could. But he really, really didn’t want to. The excitement he’d always felt when he was on the edge of something new, armed only with a multitude of formulas and the laws of physics was gone. Kaput. Scraped clean -- or more likely fallen down an endless chasm and scattered into space and time. 

Or perhaps it had never been there in the first place?

Either way, starting from square one was really taking the fun out of the whole adventure.

The hole in the machine glared at him accusingly. It set his incisors on edge -- he’d never been one for pressure. Plus the thought having to deal with those Temmies --

 

*Hoi, I’m Tem!

*Heya. I’m --

*Hoi, I’m Tem!

*Heya --

*Hoi, I’m Tem!

*sans feels a nonexistent vein throb in his skull.

*Hi, I’m Bob.

 

In the end, Sans had ended up begging Bob for directions to the shop and exchanging what he needed by scraping the dog residue off the heel of his shoe before shortcutting the _hell_ out of there.

So, there was that. Effort. It would be a lot of effort to fix the hole, and then he’d have to look over some formulas that Gaster hadn’t been able to get to before, well --

Expertly, Sans avoided the memory that tugged incessantly at the corner of his mind by simply _not_ thinking about it.

Afterwards, there would be that whole nasty business of translating the 4D concept of time into a solid 3D conception that could be accurately coded into command lines. Which meant he’d have to call up Alphys, who was undoubtedly knee-deep in the crazy project Asgore had slammed her with the second he’d officially named her the Royal Scientist (Alphys had always been a sucker for titles. Sans, not so much).

Sans’ skull started pounding as he stared out at an endless sea of work, technicality after problem after obstacle threatening to upend the perilous grasp he had on time and space. It used to be like swimming, buoyed by the liveliness of debate and a simple love of progress that felt alien on his skin now, a life jacket that used to fit comfortably and was now a size too small.

God, he was drowning.

He took a moment to press his metacarpals into the hollows of his eye sockets, trying his best to fend off the growing feeling of helplessness that settled in around his shoulders. Useless. The gaping hole burned in his mind, defiantly reminding him of his duties. His phalanges shook, clicking and rattling nervously in the conspicuously dead room.

 _A break_ , he thought desperately. _I just need a break and I’ll be good as new. I’m useless like this anyway._

“I’ll be right back,” he notified the empty room, and he could swear the air seemed to warm with familiar skepticism. After a beat, Sans threw a sheet over the judgmental hole in the machine, obscuring both the ruined heap and the damage from view. He felt better almost immediately (out of sight, out of mind).

“I’m going to Grillby’s.”


	2. weight loss or gain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just another average day at Grillby's. Or, why Grillby never asks.

“Hit me with another one, Grillby. Gotta  _ ketchup  _ with yesterday’s record.” Sans banged his empty ketchup bottle on the counter, earning an exasperated look from the bartender. For a fireball, he was oddly expressive.

“You sure? It’s your sixth one today,” Grillby crackled. 

“Ey, throw me a bone, wouldya?” Sans winked and grinned, waiting for the usual hoots of laughter from the Dog Squad. Greaterdog was yapping like crazy, but it was unclear if that was because he thought it was a ripping good pun or if he’d just heard the word ‘bone’. Grillby rolled his nonexistent eyes.

“Fine. It’ll cost you double though.”

“Put it on my tab.” Sans said offhandedly, already reaching for another bottle. Grillby uncorked a fresh one from the pack of fifty he kept on hand for Sans especially and slid it over without another word.

“When  _ are _ you going to pay that off, by the way?” 

Sans pretended to think before shrugging and tipping a vast quantity of tomato byproduct down his throat. Or, rather, past his thyroid cartilage and down his trachea where it disappeared into the bottomless pit of his soul. For some strange reason, the tomato taste calmed him in a way nothing else could, a warm numbness spreading to the very ends of his phalanges. 

Papyrus had his tomato sauce (although he passed it off as a love of spaghetti), Alphys had her anime and Undyne had her...violence. Ketchup was merely his poison of choice.

Grillby pretended to wipe an already sparkling class while sneaking peeks of Sans out of the corner of his eye (ember?). He had a system going -- one to two bottles meant Sans had been having a fantastic day. Anywhere between three to four was a normal one, complete with a mid-morning, mid-afternoon and midnight snack. Five was teetering on the edge of a truly terrible day.

As for six?

“Ah, stop lookin’ at me like that, Grills.” Perceptive as ever, even when self-medicated. “I’ve had a bad time. Give a skel his space.”

“Grills” crackled something in fire-speak and left the joker alone, floating over to where Dogamy and Dogaressa had somehow tangled themselves together during a bout of very aggressive PDA. It took half an hour to get them untangled (twenty minutes of which were spent trying to find out where one ended and the other began), and when he got back behind the bar Sans had demolished half the bottle already.

“That looked ruff.” Grillby pulsed lightning-white for a second and Sans backtracked immediately, both hands up in surrender. “You know what? It’s almost time for my quarter-mid-evening snack.”

Grillby nodded and ducked under the counter, grabbing a handful of meat and letting it cook in his hands (which  _ was _ completely sanitary, Jerry, because he was made out of pure  _ fire _ ) before slapping it down on some toasted buns. With practiced ease, he flash-fried some potatoes and poured them onto the plate too. They were almost black from the heat but the inside was warm and creamy in a way that was decidedly  _ not _ greasy, thank you very much.

Sans pulled the plate towards him and bit into the hamburger with relish -- or whatever passed for relish with Sans, so pretty much the same easygoing indifference he did everything with. 

“What’s eating at ya, kid?” Grillby didn’t say much and he judged even less, which was why he suspected the skeleton came to his establishment whenever he was feeling down. But on Six-Bottle Days, Grillby felt like it was almost his duty to ask. After all if not him, then who?

For all that Papyrus meant well, the kid was as obtuse as a brick. He probably suspected that Grillby was the one enabling his beloved brother’s ketchup habit, hence the dislike. And the older one --

_ Wait, what? _ Grillby’s hair flickered nervously as he retraced his thoughts.  _ Where had  _ that  _ come from?  _ Sans didn’t have an older brother.

Burning the creeping unease away, Grillby turned back to the monster he’d come to think of as his charge. The only person left, by process of elimination, was him. The bartender who’d really, really like to mind his own business and go home to his supernova wife and son at the end of a hard day, but he  _ couldn’t _ because he had a goddamn conscience. 

Plus he liked Sans, damn him. For all his faults and addictions to condiments, he was a charming bag of bones. 

Sans shrugged. “Just one of those days.” 

He twirled his nearly empty bottle with one bony phalange, expression unreadable. He opened his mouth. Shut it. Opened it again. Unspoken words marched across Sans’ face, confused explanations running headlong and crashing together into incoherent clumps that balled in his throat. It was a very loud silence.

Finally, Sans just leaned back and grinned in his easy going way. The confusion slipped off his face, as easily as if it had never been.

“Man, Undyne’s gonna have my skull if she finds out I’m not at my post. I’m gonna have to get back to ya on that one, Grills.”   


Sans put down a stack of bills that wasn’t enough to cover even one bottle of ketchup. Grillby took it anyway, mentally knocking off five gold from the thousand dollar tab he kept constantly open. At this point, it more of a mathematical exercise than anything else.

“I’ll be back in an hour for my mid-evening snack.” Sans winked, then waved goodbye to the Dog Squad & Co. The whole restaurant erupted into momentary bedlam.

“Bye Sans!”

“See ya buddy!”

“Catch ya later!”

“Arf! Arf! Arf!”

But Sans was long gone.

Grillby dropped bottle after bottle of ketchup from the counter to the trash, picking up the plate -- polished clean, as always -- and burning it pristine.

All evidence that Sans had ever sat and tried to tell another living soul about the truths that tormented him had been wiped clean. Grillby was sure Sans would appreciate it.

He sighed and got back to the busy job of serving customers that never seemed to have actual jobs to do or lives to live.

_ This is why I never ask.  _


End file.
